Where does the word ‘ambergris’ come from?

The French words amber gris mean grey amber, but amber bears no relation to ambergris. The first is derived from plants and the second from animals.

Amber is a yellowish, translucent fossil resin. Millions of years ago large heaps of resin which oozed from pine trees were buried by soil, and hardened into amber. Insects now extinct have been found preserved in these amber lumps. Amber is found chiefly along the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. It has long been used for making into beads and ornaments.

The Greeks and Romans believed that amber had special and mysterious powers because, when, rubbed, it attracts light objects. The Greeks called it elektron from which the word electricity is derived.

Grey amber or ambergris is a secretion from the intestines of the spermaceti or sperm whale. It is a light, fatty substance, grey in color and flecked like marble. It is sometimes found floating in large masses weighing as much as 200 pounds in tropical seas.